Why Do a Mission Study?
A Mission Study is an excellent tool to clarify who you are as a church, articulate what you stand for, explore why you operate the way you do and guide you in making decisions and setting goals for future ministry. Throughout this study, strive to:
- Focus on the positive and shaped by gratefulness to God and to each other.
- Share stories of life-giving forces within the history and experience of your congregation, in which people share times when they felt most alive, most motivated, and most excited.
- Imagine the shape of a preferred future, developing “provocative proposals,” finding common themes about “what might be” and shared images for a preferred future.
- Explore new and creative ways to manifest these imaginative futures.
4 “Do-It-Yourself” Research Strategies for Church Improvement
To help congregational leaders understand more about their church and its needs, the Presbyterian Mission Agency “do-it-yourself” research strategies for positive church improvement. These tools are particularly helpful if your congregation is conducting a mission study, preparing to call a new pastor or working on a long-range plan.
- Church Trends in Your Congregation: See how things have been changing in your congregation through a statistical summary based on the Session Annual Statistical Reports submitted to the Office of the General Assembly.
- Demographic Report: Learn about the people who live in the community around your church. The Demographic Report can help your congregation identify mission and outreach possibilities.
- Congregational Surveys: A survey can be used to build on your congregation’s unique strengths and give your congregation a picture of membership including:
- Age
- Marital status
- Average length of church membership
- Strengths and priorities of church programs
- Tools for strategic planning
- Research Strategies for Congregations: A packet of easy information gathering tools designed to help you learn more about your worshipers and your local community.
MissionInsite
MissionInsite is a mission study/demographic program. New Castle Presbytery maintains a contract with MissionInsite to provide complimentary demographic forecasting to member churches to discover your ministry opportunities.
Please contact the Presbytery office to request information to obtain a log-on for this service.
Why use MissionInsite Community Engagement for Faith & NonProfit Groups?
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- Obtain instant access to community information for your church via the PeopleView System.
- Locate church members and others affiliated with your church through a mapping system called PeoplePlot.
- Access for New Castle Presbytery churches is free with unlimited access to a system with powerful discovery tools for church ministry, church planting, church growth and outreach.
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